by Mo McDonald
I have photographs that are discoloured with age and memories of his stories come flooding back to me. The house in which he had been born stood opposite the church, across the road that ran through the village. He explained that standing in the front parlour, he would look across at the church. A small window framed it, as if on a television screen, although, of course, he had never heard of such an invention then. I could tell that all of life’s drama was seen through that window, as if in a snapshot. The theatre of the Roman Catholic Church, with all of its rich rituals, played a huge part in his young life. Living so close, he and his brothers were called upon by the parish priest to serve on the altar, not just for the Sunday Mass or holy days of obligation, but for christenings, weddings and funerals. He would have stood there in his altar boy vestments, with his back to the congregation and his gaze on the crucifix ahead. The sound of the Latin would have filled his ears, mesmerising him with its strange beauty, as his mind wandered out into the fields beyond. A game of football would await him and a laugh with his friends after, away from the solemn service of the Mass. He liked it best when he attended at a christening or a wedding because then he earned a sixpence, which went a long way then, enabling him to buy a penny whistle or save towards a new piece for his beloved Meccano set.
Even if he was at school, he would be called out to serve, whether it was to help to baptise them, marry them or to bury them; he knew everyone from miles around. The whole congregation would have known Mick Clancy and he would have known them. But I had been surprised to learn from him that daily attendance at Mass had been very low, with only his mother and Mrs Shannon participating. I had supposed that rural Ireland back then would have been more devout on a daily basis. Sundays and holy days though the church was packed.
He saw all of life on that stage, from the cradle to the grave. When he was not in it, he observed it; with its tall steeple, grey stone and wooden door, it shaped the man that he was to become. He didn’t have electricity to light his way or to entertain him, but he had the beauty of the Latin and the pain of Our Lord to influence his thinking. The joy of life and the sorrow of death weaved their way into his imagination and made him both sensitive and tough. He could have had little idea of the world beyond his kin until he became a man and went across the sea to England.
I had forgotten much about that part of his life until I began to read Jack’s books, only then did I start to understand the significance of that world. Jack’s characters spoke to me in a way that my father had. Jack wrote about his family and that awoke memories of my own. I felt a kindred spirit in Jack; he had helped to rekindle the love that was bred in me for Ireland and I felt at ease and comforted by it. My father had woven a rich tapestry with his tales of days gone by, just as Jack did in his novels, and I came to understand more about my father than I could ever have hoped by merely dwelling on him.
During my correspondence with Jack, I had no idea where he and his family had their family retreat, but I imagined it would be within easy reach of an airport. It was reported that he liked having a home in Ireland because it was so quick to pop across to London and back again, after the working day.
JACK
As I said, it was late September before I heard from her again.
Dear Jack,
Hallo, I was pleased to read your article in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago and again yesterday in the Telegraph. How do you find the time? I am amazed. Also, I enjoyed hearing you on Any Questions earlier in the year and now and again on other radio shows. However, please get on with your next novel. I am anxious. I look to you as my intellectual pin-up to enrich my life through your books. A friend of mine is about to write to you regarding her first book, which has just been published in America. It is a pleasing little book of human interest and she would love advice regarding publication in England.
You must forgive me for writing from time to time, but you worked your way into my mind and seem quite happy to stay there. I am a sensible wife and Mum who just enjoys this little romance of the mind. I look forward to hearing from you even though I realise what a busy man you are.
Bye, love from,
Marian Davies
I was so glad that she was back in contact that I replied by return of post.
Dear Marian,
Thank you very much for writing; I enjoy getting your letters. It is very rewarding having such a devoted fan. I am giving myself a talking-to so as to allow myself more time for fiction.
Thank you, once again.
Best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Jack
A couple of weeks went by, then, to my bemusement, I received this following note…
Dear Jack Kelly,
What a MCP to assume that all women are seeking a liaison. I telephoned you at the office and I was asked could you ring me back?
Don’t bother to reply,
Marian Davies
Once again, I replied by return of post (by the way, MCP was the term used at the time by the Women’s Lib, meaning male chauvinist pig).
Dear Marian,
Perhaps you can tell me what you wanted to talk to me about. I am sure that we can sort this out. Nobody here mentioned your call to me.
Best wishes as ever,
Yours sincerely,
Jack Kelly
I was shocked and concerned by her remark and I hoped that my prompt reply would reassure her. It seemed that it did. I was really taken aback though. It was as if, during my absence, she had started to change, causing her to act, the trance had clicked in, and then feeling embarrassed and insecure, she had lashed out calling me names. I did see the danger in this, but she quickly felt contrite, so I chose to forget it.
Jack,
Forgive my sudden outburst, but it took a lot of courage to ring your office and when they asked if you could ring me back, I felt so humiliated when you didn’t. I feel so close to you because I can relate to the rural settings that you speak of in some of your books. My father comes from the land and as a child he filled my head with wonderful stories of his youth. Please believe that I never tell anyone that I hear from you. I never say, ‘Oh, Jack wrote to me today.’ My husband wouldn’t understand if he knew the way in which I write to you. Forgive me, I have spoilt everything now!
Love,
Marian
PS Please keep writing and I will pretend that it is just for me. Maybe, just maybe, I am being influenced by the crazy woman that we have as Prime Minister. She recently said, ‘You turn if you want to; this Lady is not for turning.’ All I can say is that even a worm can turn and I feel weird and unlike myself. M
That had happened at the very start of the new season. We had already recorded the first two programmes and I had edited them so as to answer some of her worries through the mouths of other writers. As I have conveyed, I was both thrilled and excited by this newfound way to communicate; with a snip here and merging together there, I was able to be the ventriloquist, making the talking heads on the screen say what I wanted to get across, while at the same time portraying their messages. It was my own creation; I was God in the editing room. The TV was the innocent tool behind which I hid. The sound was my means of pulling the strings to make the words express what I wanted them to say. I was used to writing in code, hiding my meaning in the symbols of the dream world. I had always needed a secret within my creative work so as to stimulate my imagination. That was how my mind worked. Like a naughty child who knew how to appear good in the eyes of his parent, knowing that his real nature had to be kept hidden. The new power that I felt through this medium was omnipotent, which is why I had to keep Marian sweet and my editing had a newfound frisson. It seemed that my musing was paying off because another letter followed soon.
Dear Jack,
I have got to admit to myself that wanting to hear from you has become an obsession and it is making me wretched. I am tr
ying so hard to be sensible. If only you could answer me directly and talk some sense to me, but even that is not possible. I know that your letters must be formal in case anyone sees them. I am much loved and trusted. Being in limbo is driving me crazy, though. I am married to an attractive, successful man who loves me, so why, oh why, can I not rest? Please don’t laugh at me; I know that I must sound melodramatic. I need you in my life to fulfil a need that is in my head or my soul.
Love to you,
Marian
PS I ought to be content with my lot and not bother you with my selfish behaviour. I feel very annoyed with my self-pity. M
I decided that it would please her, and that it would cement the hold I had over her, if I were to send a handwritten letter. To leave out my secretary and put my own pen and ink to paper would surely make her mine. I had allowed myself to obsess over her, just as she had with me. My need for her was very real then. However, I knew enough from what Carl Jung said to know that I must tread carefully. I knew that I had to keep her as part of my creative work, not my actual everyday life. It was a difficult balancing act, but one that I had embarked on, so I had no choice but to pursue it. I wanted to pursue it. Marian was completely the right target for my exercise because she was a wife and a mother, who struggled with herself but would not want to stray. She was exactly the female that my imagination needed to dwell upon.
Dear Marian,
Thank you very much for your letters, I really do appreciate them. And I want to reassure you that you are doing nothing wrong at all. And I do know what you are struggling with. And I want to help you to understand that you are not being a bad wife or a bad mother and you are not in any way annoying me. All I can say is that I will keep writing and that the Show of Shows starts in a few weeks from now. And I hope that you get through this.
Yours as ever,
Jack Kelly
A few days later, she left a strange message with my secretary.
‘Please, tell Mr Kelly that I got through it.’
I was once again bewildered by her message and knowing that the season was aimed at her, I didn’t reply. But once more, she was quick to follow through…
Dear Jack,
Oh dear, I really have made a fool of myself this time! I couldn’t quite understand why you ended your letter by saying ‘I hope you get through it’ and not ‘over’ it. I started to think to get through on the telephone. When your secretary said that you weren’t even in London, I realised that I was wrong. However, it has taught me just how stupid I am behaving and I think it may help me. Please do not reply; I mean that in the nicest possible way. If you do and are kind to me, I will only like you more. Please remember that I will always admire you and when I am sane again, I will drop you a line wishing you well, maybe for Christmas. I handle men at arm’s length at dinner parties but cannot control this emotion in my head. Thank you once again for being nice.
Love,
Marian.
PS I must stop reading so many books!
It was obvious that she was having a hard time controlling her imagination. If I could get her to listen carefully now, I really did believe that my idea might work. I needed to gain her trust again. Once she could admit to having those strong feelings I could perhaps guide her so as to make use of her imaginative mind. Each day I was expectant when going through my mail, then a few weeks later her note threw me completely.
Dear Jack,
Are you playing Freud with me? Please be honest; just yes or no is all that is needed.
Yours,
Marian
I was leaving the UK the next day on a writer’s tour, but I had to know what she was getting at. I asked Hannah, my secretary, to telephone Marian. Listening in on the extension, I heard the following conversation.
‘Hello, Marian Davies? This is Jack Kelly’s secretary? He is out of town now for a week, but he wants you to know that he got your note. He doesn’t know what you mean, what you want from him, can you explain?’
‘Oh dear, I don’t know if I can. It is difficult to put it into words.’
‘Do you want to think about it and ring me back?’
‘No, may I think for a minute?’
‘Of course.’
There was a pause.
‘Well, I might be being too deep psychologically, but he always seems to know what to say to start me thinking. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes, I think so. I know it’s hard to answer on the spur of the moment. Do you want a reply?’
‘Tell him that I hope to sort myself out.’
My secretary was very discreet and made no comment, just, ‘All right, good bye.’
But before she could put the phone down, Marian added, in a distressed tone, ‘Please explain that I feel as though I have been brainwashed. I mean that in the nicest possible way. When I wrote to him about his book back in the summer, his reply was on different notepaper. The letter heading changed and his direct line was shown. I got to thinking it might be a message – I thought he was asking me to telephone. Then, one thing lead to another and I got in a mess. Please ask him to let me see him in his office, with you present. Just to have to walk in and face him might help to sort me out.’
‘I will ask him, but please don’t be hurt if he says no. I can assure you that it will be a considered answer. If you ring back about 5 o’clock, I will have spoken to him by then.’
‘I will. Good bye.’
Later that afternoon, Marian called back and my secretary gave my answer.
‘He would very much like to meet you. Shall I give you his out of town number?’
‘Please, if I have the courage to ring him that is!’
The number was given, and then my secretary said, ‘Afterwards, if you ring me back in about a week, I am to set up a meeting, okay?’
‘Yes, thank you so much.’
‘Oh, he said if you ring him, make it early morning or late at night. He will be out all day.’
Marian’s reply was simply, ‘Okay.’
MARIAN
I must say that I was feeling very concerned about my state of mind. My obsession with Jack had been only in a tiny compartment in my mind until then. It hadn’t spilled over into reality, but ringing his office was so against my nature that I could hardly bear it. I felt so angry with myself for daring to step out of line, and then waiting for his call back, which never came, was so humiliating, so out of character. I was confused and I could almost have hated him for having encouraged me in the first place.
I do remember struggling with the idea of never writing to him ever again, determined to break the tie that felt like a knot in the pit of my stomach. But he responded to my outburst so very quickly, by hand and in such a caring way, I felt weak and unwilling to break free. I found myself thinking, thinking, thinking, trying to make sense of the madness and asking myself why, oh why, has he gone along with this communication for so long? I knew nothing about psychology or the mind at all. I knew that Freud had theories about human behaviour, but what those theories were I had no idea. Something compelled me to write down the question, ‘Are you playing Freud with me?’ and I truly didn’t know what I meant. Even now I wonder, was it because I had been like a sponge soaking up all the information from his programmes and his many books? It was just a feeling I had because reading his novel The Needle influenced me enormously. The stepping stones of it took me to Jung and Freud and Gide, making me question the workings of Jack’s mind and explore the psychological patterns laid out in his novels. I felt that I was on a journey of discovery, a bit like Dorothy on the yellow brick road. It was all so new to me and quite extraordinary. I knew nothing about the mind. Was I awakening from the girl and wanting to learn how to understand and not to just be? I felt baffled and didn’t know what I was thinking. I just knew that I had to keep thinking. I felt I was infected or even injected by a force stronger
than me.
I hadn’t thought about the stepping stones at all until I asked directly if he was playing Freud with me. Slowly, a penny had dropped and I recalled three names that he mentioned in The Needle. It was as if they were engraved in my memory and were calling me to follow them. Their call was very powerful; I had to find out who they were and what they were trying to tell to me. I knew that I had to find them in the library. Maybe Jack really had played Freud with me – whatever that meant!
You can imagine my amazement when his secretary rang; it completely took me by surprise. I hadn’t expected that and I found it bewildering being asked to explain myself. And then I rang back and she gave me his number so as to call him out of town and he said that he would very much like to meet me. It didn’t feel real. It was as if I was sleepwalking and looking at myself as one does in a dream.